New Rudy Ad: Smell the Fear!

[JSojourner]

>>Giuliani gets it. His foreign policy team, led by Norman Podhoretz<<

That's all I need to hear to know Giuliani doesn't have a clue.  The neocons completely, utterly dropped the ball in Afghanistan and refused to confront Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.  These are the places where the real threats were.

Podhoretz was one of the architects of the Bush "attention span of a 7 year old" policy.  In short, can't get Osama? Convince people Saddam is the problem.  We CAN get him.  And in the process, we get to test drive lots of other lemons like...

** They will welcome us as liberators **

** We can win this "on the cheap" **

** A mushroom cloud over Washington **

** Fundamentalist Osama's in bed with Secularist Saddam **

** Mission accomplished **

Yeah -- he's  a real genius alright.  

Opponents of the war in Iraq do not have their heads in the sand, individually or collectively.  They include such radical, left wing subversives as Bob Novak, Pat Buchanan, Brent Scowcroft, Hugh Shelton, Rep. Walter Jones, Doug Bandow and Senator Chuck Hagel.

Podhoretz is a one-trick pony with one simple agenda: use the United States to destroy any and all enemies of Israel.  He's Reverend John Hagee, without the tongues-speaking and the faith healing.

[JSojourner]

The Bush policy has failed because Bush is a total idiot who listened to some smart people, got about 1/8 of what they were saying and then put his "plan" into action.  Bush is too simple minded to understand the intellectual complexity of what other people were telling him in the beginning which is why we are in such bad shape now.  If McCain had won in 2000 the same situation would have turned out way better... and don't say "McCain wouldn't have listened to the neocons because he was their man in 2000.

The policy failed because it's malignant and arrogant.  It reverses the strong, but humble foreign policy practiced by Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, H.W. Bush and Clinton.

We always attack those who attack us.   We attack those who attack, or at least invade and occupy, nations allied closely to us.  We do not attack (to say nothing of invading, occupying and attempting to Americanize) those who have not attacked us.

Weapons of mass destruction?  Yeah, the USSR had em.  Most of them pointed directly at our cities.  I still thank God Ronald Reagan had both the toughness and the humility to dually stand up to and dialogue with the Soviet monster.  The Chinese had and continue to have them.  But President Nixon and subsequent Presidents were smart enough to contain the threat.  

Saddam DIDN'T have them.  But still we invaded and occupied.  Meanwhile, the putrid sack of pus who DID attack us continues to live somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan.  Because the neocons enabled and emboldened the Decider to take his eye off the ball.  Moving the 10th Mountain Division out of Tora-Bora and into the desert makes about as much sense as transferring Norwegian ski troops to Cuba or some other tropical clime.

And rather than humbly admit they got it wrong...rather than suggesting we redouble our efforts in places where Al Qaeda actually IS...the neocons want to start a third war, with Iran.  And some favor a fourth war, with Syria.  All without a draft...without increasing taxes...without building a coalition.  They're sure if we just "step out on faith" the democracy fairies will make it all work out to our advantage in the end.

Jewish neocons are simply all about Israel, when Israel is right and when Israel is wrong.
Christian neocons are simply all about Armageddon.

I've never been so ashamed to be an American. Hopefully, voters will get it right this time.  Rudy McRompson is banking on fear getting the best of courage once again.  

[JSojourner]

The policy failed because it's malignant and arrogant.  It reverses the strong, but humble foreign policy practiced by Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, H.W. Bush and Clinton.

Ummm... those people were far, far, far from being of the same mind on foriegn policy.  I have an a habit of overgeneralizing, but that's just laughable.

I never said they all had the same foreign policy. Hardly.  But with regard to the maniacs who had weapons of mass destruction (namely, the Soviets and the Red Chinese) they did.  Contain.  Negotiate. Be prepared to retaliate massively if necessary. We did fight on the battlefield in Korea, in defense of an ally who was invaded and occupied.  And because U.S. troops were attacked in the process.  We did fight in Greneda, but it was a very contained space and U.S. citizens were directly at risk. We did fight in Vietnam and, in part, that is why I did not include Lyndon Johnson in the list. Though there are many differences between Iraq and Vietnam, both are examples of unecessary, failed American interventionism.

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Look up some of the CIA's actions during the 50', 60's and 70's and then look at what you just said.  If you could, I would tell you to look up "Track One" and "Track Two" you can, but you won't find much.

Covert action is one area where the aforementioned administrations did differ.  And each took different approaches to backing various insurgencies. I have my own opinions about CIA and general American backing of coups, covert armies and revolutions. But you're equating apples to oranges.  I am talking about attacking en masse, invading and occupying an entire nation. I don't excuse the behavior or policy of past administrations, Democrat or Republican.  But no President has attacked, invaded and occupied a country that did not first attack the United States.  

I am just baffled at the neocons' inability to distinguish between Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Reagan was listening to the exact same people (or at least the direct intellectual decedents) that you now deride as being terrible.  Reagan gave to hearing to people like Kissinger. 

Listening is always good. I am sure Reagan, like every President UNTIL The Decider, listened to a panoply of voices. But prudence was a hallmark of his foreign and military policy. Early neocons urged him to take action against Poland when Moscow ordered the destruction of solidarity.  He did not. He certainly aided anti-Communist insurgencies.  In retrospect, some of those decision might not have been the wisest.  But I cannot blame him.  He did strike Libya.  But Libya in 1986, like Afghanistan in 2001, harbored and encouraged terrorists to attack Americans.  Specifically, U.S. troops in Germany were targeted by murdering terrorists.  Reagan took action.  Not swiftly, but thoughtfully and with input from a chorus of advisors.  When the Soviets deployed brand new, top-of-the-line weapons of mass destruction in Eastern Europe, Ronald Reagan responded.  Not by invading and occupying the Socviet Union.  But by deploying Pershing missiles in Western Europe. Gorbachev blinked and removed the SS series missiles.  And Reagan, more diplomat than cowboy, responded in kind.

But the greatest difference between Reagan and today's neocon is in outlook.  Reagan had a sunny, serene confidence.  He KNEW good would triumph over evil.  He knew Communism (at least, the putrid, oppressive Soviet and Maoist Communism) would die on the vine in the face of American strength, optimism and courage.  Neocons wring their hands, sweat bullets and cry like babies at the thought of third world religious fundamentalist bringing America to her knees. Neocons thrive on and are motivated by fear and a deep-seated belief that America can't.  Reagan, along with many other Republicans and most Democrats, know that America CAN and WILL.  If they attack us (and they very well may), we'll slaughter them. But we won't allow ourselves to become 21st century Hitlers, who are forced to invent provocations (see Operation Canned Goods) to justify uncessary wars based on fear at the best and corporate greed at the worst.

Reagan's foreign policy was hardly perfect.  Operation Sitting Duck in Lebanon was a huge mistake.  And he knew it. To this day, neocons demonize Reagan for not invading and occupying Lebanon and Syria.  (Didn't Podhoretz himself call Reagan a coward?  I can't remember.)

As for the issue of WMD... I refuse to accept that Saddam didn't have at least some, and there is, indeed, evidence that some existed. 

I am one liberal who won't discount the possibility entirely.  But so what?  As I have pointed out repeatedly, no nation ever bore such hate or malice for us as the Soviet Union. Their weapons of mass destruction could reach Chicago and Washington and Dallas and Los Angeles.  Even if Saddam had them, his WMDs might not even have been able to reach Tel Aviv.  But never mind.  We confronted the insane, maniacal Soviet dictators by matching and exceeding their strength...and by diplomatically engaging them.  If there were WMDs in Iraq, fine.  There are WMDs in Pakistan and India, too.  There are loose nukes in the former Soviet Republics. The Decider was a mindless, easily-led toy of the neocons.  And they wanted Iraqi scalps hanging from their lodgepoles because there were spectacular amonts of money to be made or because they come from a mindset believing Israel can never do wrong.

The Pentagon was not completely wrong.  And at the risk of being laughed at I believe that there was a concerted effort inside the Federal Government, by groups unnamed (though not "unpatriotic liberals") to discredit Military Intelligence and derail the Bush Administrations efforts internationally... a well funded, well organized fifth column, not beholden to the the people and indifferent about the Constitution.  Though I am sure this will come back to bite me in the ass (or blow my head off) later in life, I will paraphrase John McCain and say that if you want to look into the eyes of the United States' current failures internationally, you will see three letters...

A "C". An "I". And an "A".

I don't know enough to comment.


As for the rest of what you say, there were strategic, historical and immediate reasons for the choice of Iraq.

Strategic? Feeding the coffers of Halliburton, Blackwater and other major Bush campaign donors was certainly strategic.  It paid off in spades in 2004. Historical? Saddam did want to assassinate the first President Bush.  I suppose he could repeat his Kuwaiti adventure.  But wait -- we took care of that, didn't we?  Pretty effectively, as I remember. Immediate?  No.  The immediate threat was that filthy waste of skin named Osama.  Who we had boxed in when The Decider pulled the 10th Mountain out of Tora Bora to put them in Iraq.

As for the response to the current situation in Iraq and possible invasion of Iran... I love how you think the neocons are somehow more organized than America's real enemies, but I assure you they aren't.  Even a quick and dispassionate glance at what various neocons are saying on these issues would show you that "their" opinion is actually all over the map.

Which neocons are on record opposing an attack on Iran?

And actually, many neocons have objected loudly to the way the war was carried out, and the total lack of real strategic planning on the side of the Bush Administration, particularly the "rush to Baghdad" which totally ignored that the objective of war is to destroy the enemies army, not to capture cities.  They should have used Baghdad as a albatross for the Republican Guard to hold them down and destroy them.  It would have cost more soldiers from the  outset, but it would have given us a whole year to build up before the foriegn insurgents showed up.  Many of "us" realized this at the time, but were largely ignored.

I've heard neocons say this in retrospect.  I didn't hear a single one, unless you consider John McCain a neocon, voice these concerns before the war. And I didn't hear ANY neocons call for reinstatement of the draft or a rollback of the Bush tax cuts to help pay for the war.  But I could have missed it.

[JSojourner]

More from Soulty ---

And, BTW... we had a coalition... a bigger one than the one that went into Iraq in 1991... sadly, it has since vanished, another product of Bush and his neglect of the State Dept with his appointment of Condi Rice... also not a neocon.

The coalition was nothing like what invaded Iraq in 1991. For one thing, the 1991 coalition included other Arabs.  Other Muslims.  Combat troops, even.  Syrian tanks and Saudi planes. French, Saudi, and Egyptian combat troops were seriously engaged. The Decider's coalition -- at its strongest -- consisted of a powerful British force and a token Australian contingent.  The rest?  A few bomb-clearing units from Denmark and Bulgaria...some Italians guarding our planes...some Spaniards doing construction.  And most of them, as you honestly point out, are gone.  But hey -- The Decider still claims there are what?  37 nations in the coalition?  The Marshal Islands, Albania, Togo?  We can all rest easy...

I do hope you know, Soulty, that though this exchange is vigorous and sharply contentious, I really do like you and appreciate your input.  I hope you know it's not personal and if I have been nasty, accept my apologies.  Any Pennsylvanians is A-OK with me!